Her eyes met his, still teary, but a smile was beginning to spread over her face. She lifted her hand to stroke his stubbly cheek, and he felt every muscle in his body go taut. Would she ever stop having this effect on him?
Then she threaded her fingers through his hair and gazed at him shyly. “Do you know you’re the most wonderful man I have ever known?”
There was no mistaking the desire flaring in her eyes. It had been a long two months. “I have to be. How else could I keep up with my very intriguing, very delightful wife?”
She giggled as he curved his hand around her neck and drew her head closer. “Don’t forget ‘wanton,’ ” she whispered.
He stared into her face, now flushing prettily at her daring statement, and a cocky grin crossed his lips. “My intriguing, delightful, wanton wife.”
Then he showed her that being wanton could have advantages for them both.
Author’s Note
The Battle of Naseby is a real one, and the king’s papers were confiscated after the Royalists lost, leading to a major shift of sympathy toward the Parliamentarian New Model Army and away from the king. Some speculate that the letters uncovered as a result led directly to the execution of Charles I (father of the king in my novel).
Several secondary characters in this book are real historical figures: Charles II, the Earl of Rochester, the Duke of Buckingham, Sir Charles Sedley, and Sir William Davenant (actual owner of the theater where the duke’s players performed). But the one who most intrigued me was Aphra Behn. Female writers owe her a great debt for being one of the first Englishwomen to earn her living as a writer. A spy and an adventuress, she swaggered about Restoration London with the best of the rakes, and produced seventeen plays in seventeen years, as well as thirteen novels and several collections of poems.
Because of her broad-minded ideas about love and sexual freedom, her works weren’t given the same attention as those written by the Restoration rakes. But she demonstrated forcefully that women have the talent and ability to write for the stage and for publication, thus paving the way for generations of women writers to come. We all thank you, Aphra!
Turn the page for a sneak peek at the next book from New York Times bestselling author Sabrina Jeffries!
If the Viscount Falls
Coming in spring 2015 from Pocket Books
Jane Vernon was impatient to be gone from Mrs. Patch’s. She was dying to know what Dominick Manton had discovered. Was it possible he’d actually found her missing cousin? Could that be why he was taking so long? Perhaps Nancy had simply stopped for a few nights at Ringrose’s Inn, and he was coming back to give them the triumphant news.
But when the Viscount Rathmoor arrived, nothing in his grim expression said that he’d found Nancy. Dom had discovered something, however. She could tell. And it was clearly something he didn’t want to share with Mrs. Patch.
Jane impatiently waited through the goodbyes and repeated assurances that they would keep Mrs. Patch informed of what they learned, and by the time they were in the street, she was fit to be tied. “All right,” she said without preamble, “what took you so long? What did you find out at the inn?”
He walked with such long strides toward the Elephant and Castle that she had to hurry to keep up with him. “I learned that Nancy arrived there around noon on the day you left Rathmoor Park. And then she apparently vanished.”
“What?” Jane seized his arm. “What do you mean, ‘vanished’?”
He stared over at her. “No one saw her leave. Unfortunately, that doesn’t tell us much, because not all of the ostlers from that day were working today.” Frustration crept into his voice. “They said I’d have to return tonight to speak with everyone who would have been here then. But . . .”
When he hesitated, she shook his arm. “But what?”
“One of the ostlers said that when he asked if he could fetch a hackney coach for Nancy, she told him there was no need because she was meeting a friend.”
Jane’s heart began to pound. “Mrs. Patch?”
“I doubt that.” Eyes hard and brittle as emeralds glittered at her. “She would have said ‘aunt.’ Besides, ‘meeting’ implies that Nancy expected someone to come there for her. And you heard Mrs. Patch say she never ventures from her house.”
This got worse by the moment. “Perhaps Nancy has a female friend in York.”
“One you’ve never heard of? Never met? How likely is that?”
Oh, the man was so infuriating! “I take it you’re determined to believe that Nancy was meeting with a lover.”
“As I said—it’s the most likely explanation.” When she frowned at him, he said smoothly, “Certainly the ostler’s words don’t fit your pet theory—that she was kidnapped.”
Seething with worry and anger and frustration that he could be such a . . . a man about this, Jane dropped his arm and quickened her pace. “You are attributing a great deal to one remark by an ostler.” She turned onto the street that led directly to the inn. “He might have misheard or misunderstood the fact that she really was heading to Mrs. Patch’s.”
Dom followed her. “Without telling the woman ahead of time? Didn’t Mrs. Patch say that Nancy always sent a note before she came?”
“She also said that murderers run rampant in the streets of York, but I don’t hear you quoting the woman on that.”
“Yes, but, Jane—” he began in that condescending, arrogant tone of his that pricked her harder than any embroidery needle.
“So that’s it,” she bit out. “You’ve got your mind made up. Nancy ran off with a lover, and you’re washing your hands of the whole thing.”
“Can you give me a good reason why I shouldn’t?”
Something in his voice made her glance at him. He was regarding her as a naturalist regarded a beetle he intended to dissect.
That’s when it dawned on her—Dom wanted to unearth her secrets. Nancy’s secrets. And somewhere between Winborough and here he’d deduced that she was hiding some.
A shiver ran down Jane’s spine, and she jerked her gaze from him, fighting to hide her consternation. “Merely the same reason I gave you before. Nancy could be in trouble. And it’s your duty as her brother-in-law to keep her safe.”
“From what?” he demanded. “From whom? Is there more to this than you’re saying?”
Ooh, that he was so determined to unveil the truth about Nancy while hiding his former collusion with her scraped Jane raw. “I could ask the same of you,” she said primly. “You’re obviously holding something back. You have some reason for your determination to believe ill of Nancy. I wonder what that might be.”
Two can play your game, Almighty Dom. Hah!
He was silent so long that she ventured a glance at him to find him looking rather discomfited. Good! It was about time.
“I am merely keeping an open mind about your cousin, which is more than I can say for you,” Dom finally answered. “She isn’t the woman you think she is.”
“Because she wouldn’t give in to your advances twelve years ago, you mean?” Jane would make him admit the truth about the night they parted if it was the last thing she did! “Perhaps that’s why you’re determined to blacken her character. You’re angry that she resisted you and went off to marry your brother instead.”
“That’s a lie!” When several people on the street turned to look in his direction, Dom lowered his voice. “It wasn’t like that.”
She stifled a smile of satisfaction. At last she was getting a reaction from him that was something other than levelheaded logic. “Wasn’t it? If you’d convinced Nancy to marry you, you might not have had to go off to be a Bow Street runner. You could have had an easier life, a better life, in high society than you could have had with me if you’d married me. Without being able to access my fortune, I could only have dragged you down.”
“You don’t really believe that I wanted to marry her for her money,” he gritted out.
“It’s either that or assume that you fell mad
ly in love with her in the few weeks we weren’t able to see each other.” They were nearly to the inn now, so Jane added a plaintive note to her voice. “Or perhaps it was her you wanted all along. You knew my uncle would never accept a second son as a husband for his rich heiress of a daughter, so you courted me to get close to her. Nancy was always so beautiful, so—”
“Enough!”
Without warning, he dragged her into one of the many alleyways that crisscrossed York. This one was deeply shadowed, the houses leaning into each other overhead, and as he pulled her around to face him, the brilliance of his eyes shone starkly in the dim light.
“I never cared one whit about Nancy.”
She tamped down her triumph—he hadn’t admitted the whole truth yet. “It certainly didn’t look that way to me. It looked like you had already forgotten me, forgotten what we meant to each—”
“The devil I had.” He shoved his face close to hers. “I never forgot you for one day, one hour, one moment. It was you, always you. Everything I did was for you, damn it. No one else.”
The passionate profession threw her off course. Dom had never been the sort to say such sweet things. But the fervent look in his eyes roused memories of how he used to look at her. And his hands gripping her arms, his body angling in closer, were so painfully familiar . . .
“I don’t . . . believe you,” she lied, her blood running wild through her veins.
His gleaming gaze impaled her. “Then believe this.” And suddenly his mouth was on hers.
He was kissing her. Kissing her, curse him! That was not what she’d set out to get from him.
But, oh, the joy of it. The heat of it. His mouth covered hers, seeking, coaxing. Without breaking the kiss, he pushed her back against the wall, and she grabbed for his shoulders, his surprisingly broad and muscular shoulders. As he sent her plummeting into unfamiliar territory, she held on for dear life.
Time rewound to when they were in her uncle’s garden, sneaking a moment alone. But this time there was no hesitation, no fear of being caught.
Glorying in that, she slid her hands about his neck to bring him closer. He groaned, and his kiss turned intimate. He used both lips and tongue, delving inside her mouth in a tender exploration that stunned her. Enchanted her. Confused her.
Something both sweet and alien pooled in her belly, a kind of yearning she’d never felt with her fiancé. With any man but Dom.
As if he sensed it, he pulled back to look at her, his eyes searching hers, full of surprise. “My God, Jane,” he said hoarsely, turning her name into a prayer.
Or a curse? She had no time to figure out which before he clasped her head to hold her still for another darkly ravishing kiss. Only this one was greedier, needier. His mouth consumed hers with all the boldness of Viking raiders of yore. His tongue drove repeatedly inside in a rhythm that made her feel all trembly and hot, and his thumbs caressed her throat, rousing the pulse there.
Thank heaven there was a wall to hold her up, or she was quite sure she would dissolve into a puddle at his feet. Because after all these years apart, he was riding roughshod over her life again. And she was letting him.
How could she not? His scent engulfed her, made her dizzy with the pleasure of it. He roused urges she’d never known she had, sparked fires in places she’d thought were frozen. Then his hands swept down her possessively as if to memorize her body . . . or mark it as belonging to him.
Belonging to him. Oh, Lord!
She shoved him away. How could she have fallen for his kisses after what he did? How could she have let him slip that far under her guard?
Never again, curse him! Never!
For a moment, he looked as stunned by what had flared between them as she. Then he reached for her, and she slipped from between him and the wall, panic rising in her chest.
“You do not have the right to kiss me anymore,” she hissed. “I’m engaged, for heaven’s sake!”
As soon as her words registered, his eyes went cold. “It certainly took you long enough to remember it.”
She gaped at him. “You have the audacity to . . . to . . .” She stabbed his shoulder with one finger. “You have no business criticizing me! You threw me away years ago, and now you want to just . . . just take me up again, as if nothing ever happened between us?”
A shadow crossed his face. “I did not throw you away. You jilted me, remember?”
That was the last straw. “Right. I jilted you.” Turning on her heel, she stalked back for the road. “Just keep telling yourself that, since you’re obviously determined to believe your own fiction.”
“Fiction?” He hurried after her. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, for pity’s sake, why can’t you just admit what you really did and be done with it?”
“What I really did?” Grabbing her by the arm, he forced her to stop just short of the street. He searched her face, and she could see when awareness dawned in his eyes. “Good God. You know the truth. You know what really happened in the library that night.”
“That you manufactured that dalliance between you and Nancy to force me into jilting you?” She snatched her arm free of him. “Yes, I know.”
Then she strode out of the alley, leaving him to stew in his own juices.
DOM STOOD DUMBFOUNDED as Jane disappeared into the street. Then he hurried to catch up to her, to get some answers.
She knew. How the devil did she know?
The answer to that was obvious. “So, Nancy told you, did she?” he snapped as he fell into step beside her.
Jane didn’t reply, just kept marching toward the inn like a hussar bent on battle.
“When?” he demanded. “How long have you known?”
“For ten years, you . . . you conniving . . . lying—”
“Ten years? You knew all this time, and you didn’t say anything?”
“Say anything!” She halted just short of the inn-yard entrance to glare at him. “How the blazes was I to do that? It’s not as if I encountered you anywhere. You disappeared into the streets of London as surely as if you were a footpad or a pickpocket.”
She planted her hands on her hips. “Oh, I read about your heroic exploits from time to time, but other than that, I neither heard nor saw anything of you until last year when you showed up at George’s town house to get Tristan freed from gaol. It was only pure chance that I happened to be at dinner with Nancy that day. As you’ll recall, you didn’t stay long. Nor did you behave as if you would welcome any confidences.”
Remembering the cool reception he’d given her, he glanced away, unable to bear the accusation in her eyes. “No, I suppose I didn’t.”
“Besides, it hardly mattered that I knew the truth. I assumed that if you ever changed your mind about making a life with me, you would seek me out. Since you never did, you were clearly determined to remain a bachelor.”
His gaze shot back to her. “It was more complicated than that.”
She snorted. “It always is with you. Which is precisely why I’m happy I’m engaged to someone else.”
That sent jealousy roaring through him, predictably enough. “Yet you let me kiss you.”
A pretty blush stained her cheeks. “You . . . you took me by surprise, that’s all. But it was a mistake. It won’t happen again.”
The hell it wouldn’t. He intended to find out if the past was as firmly in the past as she claimed. But obviously he couldn’t do it here in the street. He glanced up at the darkening sky. Or right now.
She followed the direction of his gaze. “Yes,” she said in a dull voice. “Looks like we will have a rainy trip back.” She headed into the inn yard. “Perhaps if we hurry, we can reach Winborough before it starts. Besides, we’ve got only three hours until sunset, and it’s not safe to ride in an open phaeton after dark.”
She was right, but he didn’t mean to drop this discussion. He needed answers, and once they were on the road, he meant to get them.
He strode into the inn yard, his mind a
whirl. He’d never been one for snap judgments, which was precisely what made him a good investigator. He liked to be sure he had all the facts before he sorted them by their implications and importance so he could come to some conclusions.
With Jane, though, getting all the facts was proving difficult. She was obviously too angry to tell him rationally what he needed to know. And he was too unsettled to make sense of what little she’d said.
Fortunately, calling for his phaeton, putting the top up, and getting them on the road gave him time to settle his thoughts. Certain things seeped into his memory. Such as how Jane had called him “Saint Dominick” three months ago, which at the time he’d thought odd for a woman who should have believed him a fortune hunter. Or how she’d spoken of being tired of “waiting” for her “life to begin.”
Good God. She really might have been talking about him then. About waiting for him to come after her. All this time . . .
No, he couldn’t believe that. She’d only been seventeen when they’d ended things, and women that age were still feeling their way in life. She couldn’t possibly have been carrying a torch for him all these years.
Why not? You’ve been carrying one for her.
He stifled a curse. Nonsense. He’d cut her out of his heart.
God, he was such a liar.
They were now well out of the city. She sat quietly beside him, obviously uncomfortable after what had happened between them.
She couldn’t be any more uncomfortable than he was. He could still taste her mouth, still feel the moment when she’d turned to putty in his arms. He was aware of every inch of her that touched him. Her hand lay in her lap, so close he could reach over and take it.
Or perhaps not. The last thing he needed was her shoving him off the phaeton, which she was liable to do right now if she took a mind to it. She was damned angry.
Though he wasn’t entirely sure why. She was now engaged to a very rich, very well-connected earl, all because Dom had set her free. So why did she look as if she wanted to throttle him?
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